Work Text:
Somerset had always felt small to her, in a way.
Growing up, it was a one stoplight town-well, village. It wasn't even big enough to be a town. Regardless, it had a hockey rink, as every respectable community in Wisconsin did. A hockey rink with a girls' team, one that Abby did not play for. Her parents insisted that she play across the border, in The Cities, where the teams were bigger, better, faster, and so she did. The Somerset Spartans and the Western Wisconsin Stars were too small for Abby. If she had stayed, she certainly wouldn't have come this far in her professional endeavors-right? None of the other Somerset girls are playing side-by-side with Olympic gold medalists. It was one of those towns where you knew the name of your mailman's dog and your cousins lived just down the road: tightknit, and hard to leave. It was clear from a young age that she had an affinity for skating and a mind for hockey, thus sending her down the escape route. She had always felt destined for more, to escape the endless pastures and dense forests that surround the place she'd called home.
So why does she feel so guilty about coming back?
The Victoire's humiliating loss in the playoffs granted her the opportunity to go home-just in time for the Pea Soup Days, no less: a weeklong annual affair in June, starting with a parade and ending with a concert, with a pop-up carnival set up in-between on the dirt lot in the middle of town. She hadn't been in years-her silver-spooned high school friends all lived in Minnesota, and probably wouldn't be caught dead at a grungy village carnival with the namesake of a mushy green paste anyways. That thought alone gave her a twinge of shame. What did she come back for? Tubing on the Apple River? Seeing her family? Currently to commiserate in whatever mix of emotions is coursing through her as she pulls into the brand-new Kwik Trip, freshly constructed at the base of the hill where the old Catholic church sits. At least, she thought it was new-as she steps out of the car and heads inside, the signs of wear begin to make themselves known. Sun-faded advertisements in the windows and the strange yet familiar crust built up on the Roller Bites machine suggest the gas station has been around for a couple of years, at least. She could've sworn it wasn't there last time she came home, although she also could've sworn that the old sports bar that burned down years ago was still there too. At least the club across the street stands as a permanent fixture of the village. She leaves, pulling out of the parking lot and turning away from the Kwik Trip, the club, the dirt lot where the old sports bar once stood, the church, the mush carnival, the stoplight, the town.
As she makes the drive out of town, she comes to an unexpected stop-at the only other stoplight in town.